Representations of Blackness in Nigerian Literature: Chika Unigwe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Abstract

Since 2000, an increasing number of Nigerian writers have gained attention writing about this desperation to escape and trafficking of young females. My research explores how two Nigerian women writers, Chika Unigwe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, represent the African female as a moving entity and how she engages the process of becoming black in the West. Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters Street (2009), an acclaimed novel on African female body business, unveils the plight of illegal women migrant while Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013), provides ways of understanding financial pressure as a reason for self-merchandise. This analysis leads to the conclusion that both authors engage intersectional perspectives in writing about becoming black along neo-colonial journeys in different contexts.